A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE SOUL AND BODY

Soul.

O, WHO shall from this dungeon raise

A soul enslaved so many ways ? With bolts of bones, that fettered stands In feet, and manacled in hands ; Here blinded with an eye, and there Deaf with the drumming of an ear ; A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains Of nerves, and arteries, and veins ; Tortured, besides each other part, In a vain head, and double heart ?

Body. O, who shall me deliver whole, From bonds of this tyrannic soul ? Which, stretched upright, impales me so That mine own precipice I go ; And warms and moves this needless frame, (A fever could but do the same), And, wanting where its spite to try, Has made me live to let me die A body that could never rest, Since this ill spirit it possessed.

Soul. What magic could me thus confine Within another's grief to pine ? Where, whatsoever it complain, I feel, that cannot feel, the pain ; And all my care itself employs, That to preserve which me destroys ; Constrained not only to endure Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure ; And, ready oft the port to gain, Am shipwrecked into health again.

Body. But Physic yet could never reach The maladies thou me dost teach ; Whom first the cramp of hope does tear, And then the palsy shakes of fear ; The pestilence of love does heat, Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat ; Joy's cheerful madness does perplex, Or sorrow's other madness vex ; Which knowledge forces me to know, And memory will not forego ; What but a soul could have the wit

To build me up for sin so fit ? So architects do square and hew Green trees that in the forest grew.